jushin muta liger

I would welcome Muto leading a joshi promotion under the CyberAgent/Cyberfight umbrella if they want to compete with Stardom. I personally like Stardom but there's more than enough freelancers out in the market to go full time for a CyberAgent promotion. TJPW wants to compete but they keep losing wrestlers and their wrestling isn't going for the same audience as Stardom has. Same with Ganbare Pro. A legit number two joshi promotion with real financial backing would boost the scene.

Also there is the story from Kiera Hogan about not getting into Japan after a tryout cause the owner said he would rather have a white woman. Most ppl think it was Rossy. I don't know for sure if it was him but there's only a number of promotions at the time that was bringing foreigners over. https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/kiera-hogan-says-race-cost-her-opportunity-japan

Obviously, I disagree because I nominated her. But here a list of recommended matches I wrote up a while ago for Reddit but added some more 7/16/2000 Nanae & Momoe Nakanishi vs LCO (Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita) - AJW 11/23/2000 Nanae, Momoe & Kaoru Ito vs LCO & Kumiko Maekawa (Cage Match) - AJW 2/28/2001 Nanae, Momoe, Ito & Tomoko Watanabe vs LCO, Kumiko Maekawa & Manami Toyota (Elimination Tag) - AJW 4/4/2004 Nanae & Ayako Hamada vs Momoe & AKINO - M's Style 12/12/2004 Nanae vs Ayako Hamada (WWWA Championship) - AJW 3/26/2006 Nanae vs Kumiko Maekawa (WWWA Championship and Maekawa's Retirement Match) 8/23/2009 - Emi Sakura vs. Nanae Takahashi - Ice Ribbon 11/22/2009 Nanae & Kana vs Natsuko Taiyo & Ray - NEO 3/20/2012 Nanae vs Meiko Satomura - STARDOM 1/11/2016 Nanae vs Masato Tanaka - SEAdLINNNG 5/4/2016 Nanae & Emi Sakura vs Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) - Ice Ribbon 7/11/2016 Nanae & Yoshiko vs DASH Chisako & Meiko Satomura - SEAdLINNNG 7/24/2016 - Nanae & Yoshiko vs Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) - JWP 9/28/2016 Nanae vs Rina Yamashita - SEAdLINNNG 1/26/2017 Nanae vs Arisa Nakajima - SEAdLINNNG 7/14/2017 Nanae & Sareee vs Best Friends - SEAdLINNNG 9/5/2018 Nanae vs Go Shiozaki - SEAdLINNNG 10/3/2019 Hiroyo Matsumoto vs. Nanae Takahashi - SEAdLINNNG 5/29/2019 Nanae Takahashi vs. Takumi Iroha - SEAdLINNNG 11/2/2019 Arisa Nakajima vs. Nanae Takahashi - SEAdLINNNG 2/10/2021 Arisa Nakajima & Nanae Takahashi vs. Momo Watanabe & Saya Iida - SEAdLINNNG 3/3/2021 Momo Watanabe vs. Nanae Takahashi - STARDOM

I remember the Eric Young match being entertaining but short. She won the Knockouts Tag Titles a couple of times and that era of TNA is something that I wanna look into. But here is some post ARSION Hamada that is recent I could find on Youtube: 10/2/2011 - Sara Del Rey & Madison Eagles vs. Ayumi Kurihara & Ayako Hamada 10/27/2012 - Kana (Asuka) vs Ayako Hamada 2/24/2013 - Arisa Nakajima & Ayako Hamada vs Kana & Mio Shirai 6/15/2013 - Kana & Ayumi Kurihara VS Meiko Satomura & Ayako Hamada 4/19/2015 - Ayako Hamada vs Meiko Satomura [WAVE] 10/11/2015 - Ayako Hamada vs Meiko Satomura [Sendai Girls] 5/3/2016 - Ayako Hamada vs. Yoshiko [WAVE] 6/25/2016 - Aja Kong & Ayako Hamada vs. MISSION K4 (Kagetsu & Kaho Kobayashi) [OZ Academy] 4/21/2017 - Ayako Hamada vs Taya in a Street Fight for Reina De Reinas Title [AAA] 10/1/2017 - Ayako Hamada vs Lady Shani for the vacant Reina De Reinas Title [AAA] 1/6/2018 Ayako Hamada vs Meiko Satomura [Sendai Girls] 3/11/2018 - Ayako Hamada vs Arisa Nakajima in the Catch The WAVE Tournament [WAVE] 4/21/2018 - Ayako Hamada vs Misaki Ohata in the Catch The WAVE tournament [WAVE] 4/22/2018 - Catch The WAVE 2018 Block B Decision Three Way Match : Ayako Hamada vs. Arisa Nakajima vs. Misaki Ohata 5/4/2018 - Ayako Hamada vs Rina Yamashita [WAVE]

I absolutely fell in love with Sombra in the summer of 2015 with the build up to the Atlantis match and it's continued to the present with the exception of the bad handling of him by WWE. Even when I went back to watch his older stuff, still loved it. He will absolutely make my top 100.

I think with KAORU is that she was on the outskirts of the main stages as she left AJW to go to Mexico and Hamada's Universal. She's good in GAEA's early years but when she starts teaming with Ozaki, it's a lot of brawls and I guess she did that do save her body cause she's still around today. I think she's retiring this year or next year. I'm not for sure. The last good match she's had recently was her vs Kairi in the 2015 5 STAR GP and that kinda shows that Kairi could work at WWE style match with weapons and etc.

I agree. Back to Omori, I really liked her when I started going through AJW chronologically. I wanna do a do deep dive of her and Jumbo Hori but really looking at Omori's WWWA run.

Since the jump from JWP to SEAdLINNNG, she's started to stack the resume of great matches and for the last two years, she could be considered the best women's wrestler on the planet. The tag work with her and Tsukasa Fujimoto as Best Friends is amazing and the singles work just consistent every time she steps in the ring. Will probably work in her into my low end top 100 but if she keeps up the pace, she will rise.

Momoe Nakanashi One of the most dynamic wrestlers I've ever seen. So much that Natsuki Taiyo did what Benoit did with Dynamite Kid and completely wrestled just like Momoe. If Momoe was in her prime in this modern era where gifs of her doing the Momo Latch goes viral once every six months, she would be a star either in Bushiroad's Stardom or in one of the two majors in the US. Dynamic high speed wrestler, good tag worker and sympathetic babyface that could fire up when she needed to in important matches. Matches: 11/23/2000 Momoe Nakanishi, Nanae Takahashi & Kaoru Ito vs LCO and Kumiko Maekawa [AJW] 2/28/2001 Momoe Nakanishi, Kaoru Ito, Tomoko Watanabe & Nanae Takahashi vs Manami Toyota, LCO & Kumiko Maekawa. (Elimination Match) [AJW] 5/2/2002 Momoe Nakanishi & Kaoru Ito vs Manami Toyota & Yumiko Hotta [NJPW]

Ayako Hamada One of my personal favorites of all time. She's in the branch of the dynamic/high flying/high speed joshi wrestler tree that includes Jaguar Yokota, Manami Toyota, Momoe Nakanishi, Natsuki Taiyo, and Io Shirai. Sort of a victim to being in the wrong era in the 2000s but always gave good performances throughout her career whether she was in ARSION, AJW, TNA, SHIMMER, AAA and WAVE. Her match layouts became repetitive later in her career but it worked nonetheless. Very good tag worker, underrated brawler and one of the most flexible wrestlers in terms of adapting to where she was working. Matches: 12/11/1999 Ayako Hamada and AKINO vs LCO [ARSION] 10/27/2012 Ayako Hamada vs Kana [SHIMMER] 4/21/2017 Ayako Hamada vs Taya Valkyrie (Street Fight) [AAA]

Only recent stuff that I've seen of Ozaki that is decent/good was Dynamite Kansai's retirement match and the match she had with Arisa Nakajima for the JWP Openweight Title. Been so backlogged with wrestling that I haven't seen the Exploding Barbed Wire Bat Match with Hiroyo Matsumoto and the big match she had with Saori Anou.

Hyuga is up there with Nanae Takahashi, Ayako Hamada, Yoshiko Tamura and Meiko Satomura as the best women wrestlers of the 2000s. The Yoneyama gets praised a lot but the matches with Yoshiko Tamura are great as well. Has a thrill ride bomb fest with Nanae Takahashi in Pro Wrestling Sun. Have to rewatch the Manami Toyota match from JWP but I remember it being very good. Just check her if you can.

Loved the Stardom Budokan show and is still my Show of Year as Wrestle Kingdom disappointed and WrestleMania was fun but didn't deliver like the Stardom Budokan show did. The recent Yokohama Budokan show on 4/4 was a fine show. Nothing really blow away to me, but I've seen people gush over Natsupoi vs Tam and Bea vs Utami.

I said in the Sasha thread in GWE but she's in the discussion now with her putting over Bianca Belair but also Akira Hokuto. Hokuto lost a lot of high profile matches in her career.

Funny enough, I've seen these matches already. Liked the Kairi match vs Sasha more than Sasha's match with Io Shirai the week before. Probably will look to see if she had any good ones on the main roster before the pandemic.

Nanae Takahashi One of the most underrated workers in the last twenty years. Has a deep resume of great matches that either people have not discovered or have been dismissed by people who have personal bias against her. Has a big bomb throwing style that people who don't watch joshi would love but made it believable. Always produced quality matches in her ace runs in SUN, JWP, STARDOM and SEAdLINNNG. Great as a single, great as tag worker, even great at intergender matches. Matches: 7/16/2000 - Nanae Takahashi & Momoe Nakanishi vs LCO [AJW] 3/20/2012 - Nanae Takahashi vs Meiko Satomura [STARDOM] 11/2/2019 - Nanae Takahashi vs Arisa Nakajima (Hair vs Hair) [SEAdLINNNG]

I remember the Brie Bella match and that was a really fun match.

Kairi was the heart and soul of Stardom from the start of the Three Daughter of Stardom era until she left the company. Then became the heart and soul of NXT when she had the matches with Baszler at the same time Gargano's matches were becoming overproduced melodrama. When Sasha was being promoted as the best women's wrestler in 2015, Kairi was overlooked and probably had better matches than Sasha did tbh. She might be top 100 for me but she's fantastic wrestler. Only stuff I am willing to look into is her main roster WWE stuff cause I've skipped a lot of main roster stuff over the past couple of years. I know she got concussed in the main event ladder match with her & Asuka vs Becky & Charlotte and was able to still complete the match but it wasn't surprising when the news happened cause she's that type worker. One of my absolute favorites and I hope she returns to wrestling soon.

After the Mania match with Bianca, she's vaulted into the Top 100 for me. Also, I now have her in the Cena/Bryan/Flair/Tanahashi/Hokuto level of unselfish superstar who is willing to put over anybody in order to get a star more over or create a new one.

Weeks ago, I thought I wouldn't put her in a top 100 list but performances like the one against Raquel Gonzalez just reminded how great she was. Timing really hurt her case as she really turned into one of the best wrestlers in the world from late 2015 until present day. Haven't kept up with her in NXT as much as I wanted to but she's definitely one of the best wrestlers in the last decade.

I was about to say that. Forgot which interview I found a translation of but one of the 90s joshi wrestlers that started in the 80s said that she was bullied until she started to ride on the heel bus with Dump Matsumoto ironically. Like others have said, wrestling is what it is. It's just like in life, there is levels of discretion when it comes to how you tolerate these things. I remember Bomani Jones from ESPN making a great point when Bill Withers died and how so many people gave him praise for his musical career but didn't know he abused his wife. Same for James Brown and other entertainers. I understand people will make a moral stand and understand when people won't. Luckily for me, I was never a fan of the people named in Speaking Out to begin with. But some wrestlers who are horrible irl, I will rank because I feel they are some of the greatest wrestlers of all time. Like others have said, this is list is not honoring them.

Observer Hall of Fame issue comes out tonight and five people only got in. https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/1326949903226920960

Hey everyone, especially to the WON HOF Voters, Detlef from the VOW Discord and myself are collecting HOF ballots similar to what writers do with the Baseball HOF ballots to track who is potentially going into the HOF this year. If you are an Observer HOF voter and do not mind having your ballot public, you can PM me your ballot. If you want to be anonymous but still have your ballot public, that is totally fine. We have over 20 ballots already as many voters have either revealed their ballots already or through PM/DM.

Here are more details around Hana's passing from Kyodo News. I put the spoilers on the story as a warning because it can be disturbing for some. For me personally, it has hit me hard and it's been hard for me to express it on twitter, discord and group chats. So I figured going back to the forums to write it. With Hana, I've seen her entire career and even knew about her before she even started wrestling when she was a ring card girl and a model. She just had a star aura and presence about her that couldn't be replicated. It wasn't just her looks but it was the charisma in the ring either playing heel or babyface. Whether it was her in Oedo Tai, The I Love Ribera Steakhouse Cheeleader gimmick, her being wild in her brief stint in Mexico, the cybergoth gimmick with braids when she came back from Mexico to what she evolved to the present being the leader of TCS; she always had your attention. I know everybody is shocked that she was only 22 but she did a lot inside the 4 years of wrestling career. Wrestling in MSG and the Tokyo Dome, being a main eventer, being a hit reality TV show, being a product endorser (G-Shock watches, etc) is something that most wrestlers haven't done their entire career. And she did it in 4 years. I think that gets lost with the news coverage that she was on the verge of being a superstar. With the reality show, I thought she was either going to become a mainstream celebrity, draw big money houses for Stardom, possibly leave wrestling for acting or even come to WWE for big money. She was that type of star in the making. I would never imagine that the reality show would lead to her being gone forever. I've seen people talk about J-Pop and K-Pop idol stars succumbing to the same thing and it's just heartbreaking. I was legit worried about Stardom amping up their idol image but I would never expect the damn reality show to be her downfall. This ranks up with Eddie, Owen, and begrudgingly Benoit with wrestler passings in terms of the hurt I've felt. However, this eerily reminds me of the late R&B singer Aaliyah when she passed away at 22 as well. The cause of death wasn't the same at all but the shock of the death, outpouring love from fans and colleagues, and the career trajectory were similar. Aaliyah was a superstar but she on track to be global superstar with doing movies and such. Also, people didn't have bad things to say about her and it's been the same with Hana. Other than the report in the Observer last year about not agreeing certain finishes in ROH (which people ridiculed and piled on Meltzer ironically), she seemed to very well liked throughout the wrestling world. It seemed like she had a light up the room type of quality about her and I know a lot of English speaking fans said she was one of the nicest wrestlers they have ever met which is rare for a star. I know Aaliyah has inspired a lot of pop and R&B acts after her and I think the same will happen with Hana in terms of wrestling. She had a budding female fan base that looked up to her because she was a tough, independent and feminine woman. Rovert mentioned before that Stardom seemed to be the new World Class and it's starting to feel that way honestly. Ever step they take forward, they knocked back twice and it's unfortunate. I pray for Kyoko, her stepdad Isao Kobayashi, her grandmother, Jungle Kyona (who was supposedly at the scene), her friends and her fans that they can heal properly because this was a big loss.

Bumping this thread cause a lot has changed since the summer. Arisa Nakajima vs Nanae Takahashi hair vs hair match is the Joshi MOTY, imo. Urge everyone to check it out. https://youtu.be/ha88PB4hLQw